


Oceans

by Farla



Category: Homestuck
Genre: BTF, F/M, rbtf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-22
Updated: 2010-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-13 23:44:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/142989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Farla/pseuds/Farla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a demon with feathery wings on their tail, Kanaya just took her chainsaw to Tavros, Karkat's ranting, and Eridan's truly sure this time that they're doomed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oceans

**Author's Note:**

  * For [murasakiseiko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/murasakiseiko/gifts).



"Kan's meaner than you give her credit for," he insists, doing his best to balance his desire not to be overheard with his desire to shout at the top of his lungs. "You didn't see the fuckin' look she had in her eyes while she was hacking them off."

"Oh, you're always saying that about people," Feferi says blithely. "She had the new legs all ready, now didn't she? She was just being a good friend! Why would anybody want to be mean to Tavros?"

Eridan boggles. How can you explain something so obvious? "Fef, Vris-"

"That's different," she says, waving a hand. "That's just how Vriska is. She's spades to everyone."

"...yeah," Eridan says.

"Sorry! I didn't mean - "

"No, it's okay..." He shrugs and tries to smile.

"I don't mean that you and she..." Feferi trails off. She's never had much to say about the concupiscent side of things. "What you two had was different. Everyone was always saying you two had the perfect kismesistude."

"Well everyone isn't fuckin' always right," Eridan says. "They're not right, or nice, or honest, or good, or, or - you shouldn't trust things to work out! They don't work out! They didn't! There's some demon out there - and did you see Aradia's logs of what that looked like?! None of us can beat that, and it's taken the prize and our way out and we're trapped in here with some - some angel, a fuckin' _angel_ Fef, and Kan's lost it and Kar's given up and sayin' we can't even sleep now and - and -" He kicks, foot connecting with one of Gamzee's horns from his absurd pile and knocking it across the room. It hits the wall with an unsatisfying HONK. "An' it's over, all of it!" He storms over to the transportalizer.

He stops to take a couple deep breaths. That doesn't work so he punches the wall. The clanging sound it makes is far more satisfying than Gamzee's horn, as is the pain across his knuckles.

He doesn't feel much better. Being alone, surrounded by the bare metal hallway of the Veil station makes it impossible to forget where he is and with that, why he's there. Why they're all there, hiding like scared, weak children. He punches the wall again, in the dent left from the first time, and watches the metal plating deform further around his fist. All the levels, all the power, all the weapons and fraymotifs and it came to nothing before the demon invading their session.

"It's going to be okay, Eridan," Feferi says behind him. "You'll see."

He turns to see her standing on the transportalizer. "How on - " Alternia could she think that, only it isn't like they're on Alternia any longer. He isn't even sure if Alternia exists by now, after all those meteors, which might be the only good news since at least then that means all those agents Vriska exiled wouldn't be coming back for revenge, except that the only thing he's really learned in this game is there is no "now" or "then" except when you wished there wasn't. Like when a demon appears. Like when you try to kill someone's moirail. He leans back against the cold metal and slides down to the floor. "Jus...it's not. Not goin' to."

"It _will_ ," she says. She sits in front of him cross-legged.

He stares down at the gray floor between his feet and the drops of purple blood on it from his knuckles. "It'll show up and it'll be over, if we don't all kill ourselves first. Didn't you see it Fef?" His hands are starting to shake and he presses them against his legs, not looking up. "Those horrible feathery wings. It's death. It's our death. It's the fuckin' end. It's - "

She hugs him. He's so startled that for a couple seconds he just sits like a stunned fish. Then he wraps his arms around her and hugs back.

"It'll be okay, it'll be okay, it'll be okay," she keeps saying, and then she says, "There's always a way, that's how these things work, you'll see. The Outer Gods are still there for us, and our new friends..."

Eridan lets go of her finally, and she pulls back. He avoids her eyes. "Thanks, I, thanks. You, you can go back to the others," he mumbles. "To the gu- Sollux." She didn't mean anything by the hug, he knows. Or not anything more, not what he wanted it to mean. If Vris is spades to everyone, then she's diamonds. She's hugged him before, on the rare occasions they met in person. She's probably hugged everyone in the group by now, even Aradia, and Aradia's shithive maggots and made of metal.

"He's looking over the computers, he doesn't need my help right now."

"Are you really goin' to go to sleep?" Eridan asks.

"There's nothing to be scared of! Karkat doesn't understand. And they don't either! They know even less than we did. I want to show them. And all of you, I'll show you just because things seem bad right now doesn't mean they really are. It's just like back when we began, with the meteors coming down and everything seeming so terrible, but then we made it, even if it was close." Far, far too close, Eridan thinks, but she bubbles on as if the memory isn't upsetting. "You know what they say, it's brightest before dusk! You have to wait, and it looks all sunny and terrible for a while, but eventually the sun will go down."

He's not sure why, but he says, "Didn't you say you used to stay up durin' the day?"

"A couple times," she says. "The sun isn't that bad if you're far enough below the surface, the ocean's water blocks the worst of it. Actually, it looks kind of pretty from down there." She's quiet a moment, then she says, "I wish you had seen it with me some time. It lit up the water, it was like swimming through gold or brass."

"I..." He doesn't regret missing out on the oceans, never did. He liked the feel of a deck moving with the waves below it, the salt in the air, not the wet itself. But missing out on her...

"We'll have to wait until we get to that new universe of ours!" she says. "What did you think of how the planet looks? It has even bigger oceans than the ones back on Alternia!" She bops the top of his head. "And no more excuses when we get there, you're finally going to go swimming with me and see the cuttlefish."

"How'd you know there's cuttlefish?"

"Of course there's cuttlefish, silly, what sort of planet would it be without cuttlefish? Not one I'd admit to making! They're even more adorable than your lusus was."

Eridan digests that. "You think there's ones like him on the planet too?"

"Of course!" she says again, affronted. "Do you think I'd make a whole ocean and forget something as adorable as seahorses? I won't let you go back until we've swum through whole schools of them."

He smiles back, imagining them. Then his shoulders slump. "Why don't you take Sollux," he says.

"Eridan!" She sounds more amused than anything. "He'd drown!"

"Oh. Right." That's the benefit of being the only other sea troll left, then, he thinks. If she wants to go swimming with anyone she doesn't have any other choice. _See, Vris, you got that wrong, she_ will _go out with me if I'm the last troll in existence_ , and then he can't help but laugh miserably. "An' I won't."

"Well you've got gills...what's wrong?"

"An' nobody else does but me and you now."

"I thought you were over all that..."

"I'm tryin' to be! It's not that easy, I can't jus'...decide to be."

"I don't know why it's so hard. I mean who really cares if they live on land or not, you spent almost your whole life on land too! And I'm the only one of your friends who wasn't a land dweller. And anyway we're not really anything dwellers any more! We're all the same here."

"That's not - that's not it, it's - not important." He doesn't feel up to being shot down again, not right now.

"If you're upset, it's important!" She leans in again, twisting to the side so her face fills his vision. "You've been so quiet since...the fight and everything."

"'M sorry," he mutters.

"I didn't mean I was still mad about that. I'm not, you know that right?"

"I jus'...miss how things used to be."

"Oh." Feferi rocks back. She has a far away expression. "Things were...I miss things too..." She smiles. "But, even after everything, I'm glad we played Sgrub. I loved my lusus, but she was so dangerous to everyone, and I always worried about her getting hungry."

"I could've got more, Fef, I told you a hundred times, you shouldn't've worried."

"I know but - it didn't seem fair, you know? You having to worry about it, and getting into fights all the time to help me. I wasn't a very good moirail..."

"That's not true! You were - "

" - more worried about her than you," Feferi says. "Or about what she'd do to everyone else. I was - I still am so grateful you helped, but it wasn't fair to ask it in the first place. I felt like I was using you, but I didn't know what else to do. And I didn't do a good job on my side at keeping you safe. It seemed like you kept getting into more and more trouble..."

"I was just fuckin' dumb," he says. "It wasn't your fault. I'd thought..." That she'd been interested in him as more than just someone to talk down from the latest plan. That she'd liked the excuse to talk as much as he had. And that wasn't her fault at all, it'd been his, not wanting to see how stressed she'd been, or that if she'd wanted to talk more she'd have made her own excuses for it too. "I wasn't really a good moirail either. and - and I know you and Sollux get along well and you're fuckin' happy and shit, and I don't know what I was even thinkin', fightin' back then, I just... I'd rather have been moirails than nothin' to you, even if I wasn' any good at it."

"You're not nothing."

"Nothin' but the only other one who can swim then," he says.

"That's not why I want - I want to show you things! I want to take you to see them with me because I like you!"

"Not like I like you, though."

"Eridan..." She sighs, and now she's looking down and away. "I'm sorry about that. It was just...it was a lot to take in at once. I've never really...I don't know if I'm ready for concupiscent relationships. I...I didn't do a good job being your moirail, and I don't want to be a bad matesprit to you. It doesn't mean I don't care about you at all, that I don't ever..."

"Oh." Eridan's heart is speeding up. "Then -"

She kisses him on the nose. "When we're older."

"If we don't die," he blurts out, which to anyone else would ruin the mood. But she just smiles.

"If we don't die," she agrees, and when she says it she sounds like she really believes it. She stands. "Come on, let's go back. Kanaya's been talking to one of the humans and she thinks you two would really hit it off."


End file.
